Lamenting the loss of Boulder's local coffee shops

New Starbucks going in on Hill across from former Espresso Roma

Jamie Morton gets her work done while having coffee at the The Cup Espresso Café in Boulder last month,. (Mark Leffingwell / Daily Camera)

Chalk doodles from former customers decorate the brick facade of the shuttered Espresso Roma coffee shop on University Hill.

Across the street from Roma's folksy exterior, an empty storefront is being turned into a future Starbucks — a stark contrast to what its neighboring building used to house, until last October.

"The overall environment up there needs a lot of help," said Sean Maher, executive director of Downtown Boulder Inc. "Given the choice, I'd certainly rather see a local business. A Starbucks is better than a vacant building, but a Starbucks in Boulder looks a lot like a Starbucks in New York City.

Within the last few years, Boulder has seen many of its favorite independent coffee joints dry up.

Atlas Purveyors tea and coffee shop on Pearl Street folded in July. Folsom St. Coffee Co. closed in January 2013. Saxy's Café in downtown Boulder served its last cup in February 2012. And Bookend Café on Pearl Street shuttered in June 2011.

"I used to own a coffee shop, so I can speak to this," said Doyle Albee, who co-hosts the Boulder Open Coffee Club, a tech and entrepreneur-based organization, that used to meet at Atlas Purveyors. "I can go to any coffee shop and spend $4 and sit there for four hours. It's a really delicate balance between having a full coffee shop and generating income, and Boulder real estate is very expensive.

"I get why some of these places have to close. Their closing is certainly going to change our landscape."

Albee found a new home for the coffee club at Scrib coworking space at Broadway and Spruce Street. Although he said the new location has "been nothing but wonderful," he said he wouldn't have left Atlas for any reason other than the shop closing.

"I thought two things were really good about Atlas: one was the way the large community tables were set up because it was not awkward at all to walk up and ask if you could sit down next to someone. It fostered the open, colloquial feel.

"Secondly, Chris (Rosen, one of Atlas's owners) went out of his way to ask how he could support the community. He went out of his way to support the Boulder tech start-up community in any way he could."

Matt Blake was a loyal customer and friend to the Espresso Roma business.

"I had the pleasure of seeing the philanthropic and artistic community behind which Roma was a physical front to," he said. "The shop had a much larger goal in terms of community outreach. It wasn't just a place that served coffee. It was a collective of really great thinkers who have a strong passion for enriching the community."

Downtown Boulder's Maher mentioned that the competitive food and drinks industry present in Boulder could be at fault for such closures.

"We have so many great restaurants and coffee shops, so if you want to come into this industry and compete, you have to be really, really good," he said.

Blake thinks there is a greater issue at hand.

"Espresso Roma symbolized a last stand of a real grassroots entity on the Hill," he said. "I think this Starbucks being built across the way is symbolic of the corporate takeover going on here. I think a lot of people are probably fairly apathetic to the value of local business. A lot of people are saying, 'Coffee is coffee,' and will go wherever is convenient."

'Coffee promotes conversation'

The Cup Espresso Café on Pearl Street sits a couple doors down from Atlas Purveyors' former building. Owner Wendy Ball says business is "still kicking."

"We did notice a kick in business when Atlas closed. They were our friends down the street. It was a sad day," she said.

Ball said coffee shops are important for the community because they're great meeting places.

"Coffee promotes conversation. People feel OK going in one by themselves and sitting down and striking up a conversation. You never know who you're going to run into," she said.

Blake shared similar sentiments and added that the value of a coffee shop extends beyond the beverages and food it sells.

"At the end of the day, we weren't going there for the coffee. We were going there for the people, the music, the intellectual experience," he said.

As loyal sippers still mourn the loss of their favorite local hangouts, Albee said it's the responsibility of the community to help support these hubs of culture.

"If you have a place you love, you have to ask, Wwhat can I do to help you?'" he said.

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